Then Weyland was gone, leaving Hugh so dumbfounded he nearly rocked on his feet. “You’re going tae…” he began, but his voice broke lower. “We’re tae…marry?”
“Yes, I am constrained to agree to this insanity—you are not. And you will ruin my life if you don’t refuse to do this for him.” Turmoil and emotion rolled off her in waves. She’d always been like that—volatile, like an explosive. Yet no one but Hugh seemed to understand just how complicated Jane was.
So Weyland had succeeded. Hugh hadn’t expected her to be happy about the nuptials, but…“A temporary marriage to me counts as a ruined life?”
Every word she spoke was clipped with her proper English accent, and dripping with outrage. “Do you know why I was with Frederick Bidworth—Lord Whiting—this morning?” She answered her own question, “Because I was accepting his sodding proposal today!”
Hugh’s vision swam. But why should he be surprised? He’d wondered as each month went by, for years, why she hadn’t married. Wait. How had Weyland not known about this? He had to have. She was about to be “settled” without any interference from them.
Bloody hell. This just kept getting better. Hugh had wanted to kill Bidworth for kissing Jane—whom the man had thought was his.
“However, my plans were interrupted when you attacked Freddie.”
Jane was within her rights to be kissing her soon-to-be fiancé. Just because Hugh could think of naught but her didn’t mean she was affected the same way by him. She’d had a life of her own these last years, and Hugh had just been dropped in the middle of it, swinging as he landed. “You were about to accept an earl, yet your father is still insisting on me?” It was a genuine question, but she took it as a retort and glared at him.
“Why, Hugh? Why is Davis Grey doing this? You know him—is he truly so dangerous that I have to flee my home?” Her face was drawn with confusion. “Why is Father so set on you? Did he blackmail you into this as well? Of course he did. Why else would you agree to such a lunatic idea?”
“I’ve no’ been blackmailed, but I have promised your father. Just cooperate with me. The arrangement will no’ be permanent as long as we doona…consummate the marriage.” He lowered his voice. “Rest easy, this is temporary. I have no intention of remaining married any more than you do. And you know that if I dinna touch you before, then you’re safe from it now.”
“As if I’d let you,” she hissed.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. His head was throbbing, his neck knotted with tension, but he tried to calm his tone. His ire never daunted Jane. “Did you ever think that this is no’ something I want either?”
No, he didn’t want this, was never supposed to marry. But now that he’d seen her once more, he didn’t want anyone else to wed her either. And he was just selfish enough to agree to Weyland’s machinations. Her father knew what was best for her, he reasoned, and Weyland had chosen Hugh. “Jane, I dinna come here thinking I’d leave with a bride.”
“Then why did you tell Papa to see it done?”
“Because I can protect you.”
She advanced until she was toe to toe with him, unflinching as she raised her face to his. “If you do this, Hugh, you have no idea how much I’ll make you regret it. I’m giving you fair warning right now to desist from this.”
When he said nothing, making his expression unbending, her lips parted in disbelief.
“Resolved, are we? Then so must I be.” She made her tone soft when she asked, “Hugh, do you remember when I used to tease you?”
As if he could ever, ever forget.
“Darling, you’re going to find that I’ve gotten better at it.” She walked her fingers up his chest, and her voice grew breathless. “You’ll see that I’ve gathered new arrows…in my quiver.” Somehow she made that phrase sound wicked, and the customary sweat beaded on his brow.
“You’ve made it clear that you don’t want this marriage,” she said. “So before you go forward with this madness, consider—how much can you resist…day after day?”
He swallowed.
“Prepare yourself, darling.” She turned, sauntering up the stairs with a hip-swinging gait that drew his riveted gaze. Over her shoulder, she said, “Because I’m about to make your life a living hell.” Disappearing into her room, she slammed her door.
“More of the same,” he muttered, wondering if his wedding might go smoother than his engagement.
Thirteen
The wily old man had done it.
Weyland had somehow convinced MacCarrick to marry his daughter. Felicitations all around.
Grey had been creeping around the house all morning, entertaining himself by dodging Quin and Rolley. Though Grey didn’t blend as perfectly as he had in his prime, he’d been able to get close enough to gossiping servants to garner information.
Apparently, Miss Jane was having trunks packed for at least a month, but she couldn’t provide a destination to help them select appropriate clothing to pack. And her lady’s maid was being left behind, while her horse and her bow and quiver were not. Food preparations were being made—refreshments for the minister, who’d arrived early, but no wedding breakfast, as the newlyweds were setting off immediately after the simple ceremony.
The servants were sniffling at the news of the wedding and their mistress’s departure. They all fawned over her. Not surprising. Weyland had told Grey and Hugh with obvious pride that Jane had always been generous with her wealth and her time, regardless of a person’s station.
The servants were far from enamored of the groom, however. As one of them opined: “’E’s frightening as ’oly ’ell and not near good enough for our Miss Jane.”
This was true. Jane was so far out of his league it was laughable. MacCarrick was massive, stony, and intimidating; Jane was a celebrated beauty brimming with wit and charm.
And she was MacCarrick’s sole weakness.
Grey had discovered that the night of Jane’s coming-out ball—an event Weyland had insisted they attend. Grey had gotten MacCarrick drunk to lure him there, but Hugh had skulked outside, watching her through a window, his body tense. There’d been such longing in his eyes that Grey had realized the young Highlander was in love with the fair Jane.
A bear chasing a butterfly.
Grey had had to stifle a chuckle at the illogical match—even more so because Hugh had known he wasn’t good enough for her, yet he’d been unable to let go of his feelings.
More shocking to Grey than Hugh’s capitulation was that Weyland had somehow convinced Jane as well. How? Had he come clean about their occupations? About Grey’s?
It had been years since Grey had felt genuine amusement, but this situation was boiling over with such rich irony. An assassin bade to protect a life, the life he held dearest in the world—his wife’s. And to protect her from a better assassin.
All of them had to know that Grey was a much more accomplished killer than Hugh was a protector.
His amusement faded. He hadn’t wanted this to be easy….
With Quin and Rolley hovering about them, and a sharp-eyed coach driver who had “Network” written all over him on the lookout, Weyland escorted Jane to the coach. Hugh followed, close behind her, behaving as if she had a target on her back.
She did. Grey had a clear shot from where he lurked this moment. Unfortunately, his aim was…impaired at present. If he missed, he’d be doing nothing but alerting them that he was in England. No, he would have to get closer.
At the coach door, Weyland held Jane’s head in both hands and put his forehead to hers. Her face went stark white, her expression stunned, when her father kissed her cheek good-bye. “Papa?” she said in a breaking voice, as if she was just now realizing she was leaving him and her home.
Weyland forced himself away, pausing only to squeeze her shoulder and to give MacCarrick a hard look, letting him know what he was trusting him with. Then he left them, his own shoulders sagging like an old man’s—like the old man he was becoming.
As Grey watched their actions and interactions in a kind of dazed captivation, he wondered if Weyland had told MacCarrick about the list to convince him. Probably.
Grey did have the list, and had threatened to release it, but if that information went public, Weyland would be dead directly. In Weyland’s clandestine service, he’d routinely had to make cold-blooded decisions, dispatching men like Grey, Ethan, and Hugh to carry them out. If those numerous decisions were traced back to Weyland, it would be over.
That wasn’t Grey’s agenda, not yet—
When a sudden cold clamminess broke out on his neck and back, dampening his shirt, Grey reached into his jacket pocket. He’d anticipated that smoking would be more inconvenient in England than in some other countries, and had had his “medicine” prepared differently. He needn’t have bothered. In London, opium was proving easier to find than tobacco and cheaper than gin.
But he liked the alteration. He chewed it, relishing it. The taste was like almonds that were slightly off. The texture was gummy.
My medicine. He snorted. His body had been ruined from injuries sustained in his profession, and laudanum had made the pain bearable. Upon noticing that Hugh limped himself, especially in the mornings, Grey had offered him some. The bastard had shook his head firmly. So bloody sanctimonious.
As he chewed, Grey’s heartbeat slowed to a ponderous rhythm, though he felt more excitement than he could remember. Luckily, with this dosage there would be no hallucinations. He hoped….
Ah, and there went Jane, waking as if from a trance, beginning to gesture and fume even as MacCarrick was loading her into the coach. Stubborn Jane wasn’t one to be led blindly, and she was no doubt demanding answers, ones that Hugh clearly wasn’t providing. At the coach door, she stepped up, but turned to say something else to Hugh, putting their faces close. They both fell silent.
Grey had compared Hugh to a bear chasing a butterfly. The corners of Grey’s lips tilted up. No, Hugh was better than that—he was like a wolf with a rabbit twitching her tail in front of him.
Sooner or later, the wolf would attack.
When Hugh shut the carriage door, he stood for just a second, exhaling deeply, as if getting his bearings. He ran a shaking hand over his face, no doubt disbelieving he’d wed the chit.
“Don’t worry, Hugh,” Grey softly assured him. “It shan’t be for long.”
In the past, if Jane had caught Hugh staring at her breasts, he’d always averted his eyes. In the coach for the last hour, he’d looked at her brazenly, studying her body, as if re-learning it, as if it was his right to do so. It galled her. He could have had unfettered access to her body. She would have denied him nothing in the past.
The fact that she reacted to his heated gaze only infuriated her further. Why couldn’t she have found him less attractive than she had years before? She’d always thought him the most beautiful man she’d ever seen—even before she’d spied on him shucking off his clothes to swim naked in the lake and had gazed in awe at his magnificent body. And now this new hardness about him was nearly irresistible.
A living hell, she’d promised him. She’d sounded so strong, so determined.
Now she waffled.
Stay married, her father had advised. She didn’t want that, couldn’t have that. She’d been forced to accept the alliance, but Hugh hadn’t been and could have saved them both from this.
He’d refused.
Because Hugh had left her no way out, Jane felt he might as well have pushed her off a cliff. Yes, a nice, big shove, sending her flailing and screaming right over the edge.
Inevitably, once she landed, it was going to be messy.
She was already livid with him over the past, before he attacked Freddie. Now she was wed to the very man who’d betrayed her, and this on the heels of the rawest show of fury she had ever seen. Hugh in the warehouse had been bad, but this morning he’d been worse. What she couldn’t understand was why.
Had he become one of those men whose first reaction always tended toward violence? Or had her father already promised her to him, days, even weeks, before? Which would mean Hugh had thought his fiancée had been kissing another? She frowned. Recalling her conversation with her father, she realized he’d never asked her why Hugh had attacked Freddie….
Hugh’s own explanation had rung hollow, even as he’d uttered it. Yes, Hugh was a close friend of the family’s, and, yes, perhaps she oughtn’t to have been kissing Freddie in the park behind the folly, but nothing excused what he’d done.
Jane was angry and she wanted revenge. Her talent still lay in teasing and tormenting. In fact, as she’d pointed out to Hugh, her arsenal had only expanded, thanks to all the tricks she’d learned in her five London seasons among seven master cousins.
Hugh should know what he’d given up back then. He should have a taste of what he couldn’t have now without risking a binding marriage to her.
For every hopeless day and night filled with tears, for every man she’d compared to him and found lacking, for his decision to leave her…
For all her pain, she would make him pay.
“Oh, Hugh, darling, it’s close in here, is it not?” She unfastened the first few buttons of her blouse and drew it wide to fan herself. After opening the window on her side, she tugged up her skirts so she could kneel on the bench facing him. She reached past Hugh toward his window, resting one knee against his thigh, and placed her palm just above his own knee. His entire body went rigid.
With her other arm stretched out to the window, she turned her head so their lips were barely inches apart. “You don’t mind, do you, darling?” she asked in a sensual whisper as she slowly rubbed her palm higher up his rock-hard thigh. His jaw clenched, and he swallowed hard. His brows drew together as though he was in pain.
Make him pay.
They hit a bump, and though his hands shot to her waist to steady her, she made sure she landed straddling him.
He hissed in a breath. “Jane,” he growled, tightening his grip. But he didn’t raise her from her position—if anything, his shaking hands on her waist pressed her down.
“What is it, darling?” she murmured.
“Doona touch me, lass,” he rasped. “Just…you canna touch me.”
And pay.
“How clumsy of me,” she purred. “Needing you to support me, or else I might slide…slowly…inch by inch…down upon your”—she leaned in close to his ear, making sure he felt her breaths before she enunciated—“lap.” He shuddered violently, lowering his head to her neck.
When she eased back, he faced her, appearing stunned. His normally clenched jaw was slack.
She patted his shoulder firmly—all business—then maneuvered and swished back into her seat to gaze casually out the window. “Yes, darling, now it’s much better in here.”
Fourteen
Hugh violently rubbed his palms on his legs, struggling for a calm he didn’t possess. His swift, blood-pounding erection strained against his trousers. His breaths came haggard.
After wanting her for so long…
She didn’t understand just how tenuous his control was, and was even now gazing out the window, unconcerned. But he could see her coral lips curling without humor. She was playing with him, just as she always had.
He’d tolerate it no longer. I saw her kissing another goddamned man.
His hand shot out to grasp her arm, and her smirk vanished. She turned to him with a glare. “Hugh, release me.”
He yanked her closer to him on the bench. “You’d do well to recognize I’m no’ the same lad I was.”
“And what are you now?” she asked airily, seemingly unaffected by what had just occurred and by Hugh’s building anger.
“I’m a man with a man’s needs.” He would teach her, give her this lesson now so that she would stop these flirtations. Because she was right—she had gotten even better, somehow improving on perfection. He sensed it was critical to put her in her place now. His voice grating, he said, “Doona expect to tease m
e like that and no’ relieve me in some fashion.”
Her eyes widened, then narrowed. “Some fashion? Enlighten me, darling.” Her soft fingertips toyed with his chest in the V of his shirt. Christ, she made him weak. “How do you usually prefer to be…relieved?”
So she’d meet him measure for measure? He was a man with more experience, he should be able to win this handily. There had to be a line she wouldn’t cross. But could he pull back once they reached it?
“I’ll have tae show you,” he heard himself saying. In one sweeping motion, he dragged her onto his lap, easing her back against his arm until he was leaning over her. She looked startled—after all, this was the first time he’d ever touched her back when she’d teased—but then a flicker of that stubborn look crossed her face. In the space of a heartbeat, she was all seduction again, reaching out to pet his neck even as she relaxed into his arm.
His blood pulsed in his groin, making it hot and aching. When she gasped, he knew she could feel his erection throbbing under her arse. He was having difficulty thinking. Didn’t he have an agenda with this?
Kiss her so hard she’ll forget she was in another man’s arms this morning….
No. He was only doing this to push her, to startle her, to win this battle of wills. They always used to have them, and Hugh had lost as many as he’d won.
Her lips were parted, welcoming. Her body was so damned soft against him. Just one taste. Yes, get this out of the way in the beginning. Of course. He’d only imagined how good kissing her would be, and when that was proved otherwise, he could get past his obsession.
He leaned down, never taking his eyes from hers. He felt the lace hem of her skirt clenched in his shaking fist and had no idea how it had gotten there. No doubt he wanted to get to those wicked garters he’d seen her lace around her white thighs this morning.
Her open blouse revealed the swells of her creamy breasts above her corset, and he bent to brush his lips over them, stunned to find her skin was as soft as it looked. When she shivered, her playfulness gone, he kissed up to the base of her neck, realizing this was the first time his lips had ever touched her.
Kresley Cole - [MacCarrick Brothers 02] Page 8
